ABSTRACT

After the collapse of the Berlin wall in 1989 and disintegration of the Soviet Union, scholars focused on the problems of legal transitions within the newly emerging democracies. Two decades on, these states are in ‘post-transition’ conditions; having undergone and continuing to experience political, economic and constitutional upheavals to varying degrees. This book provides an interdisciplinary perspective on this largely unexamined topic.

Part I of the book sets the scene with a socio-historical overview and a theoretical chapter; both of which contextualise the book within current debates and provide the theoretical direction of the book as a whole. The later chapters set out contrasting perspectives and consist of themed essays on individual legal systems, investigating these through approaches ranging from socio-legal study to political economy. The book aims to refine important directions for the comparative conceptual study of criminal law policy and processes of criminalisation in emerging democratic states. The result is a significant contribution to the understanding of this subject in the fields of criminology, law, philosophy and political science.

The book will appeal to academics, policy-makers and practitioners who are attempting to grapple with the area of "transitions" in the fields of criminology, law, philosophy and political science. As a distinctively interdisciplinary text, it brings together analysis of both the social processes of creating (and abandoning) criminal law and a philosophical reflection. The book provides a comprehensive and critical analysis which points to future directions in criminalisation in the emerging democratic states of Eastern Europe.

part |39 pages

A socio-historical overview

chapter |19 pages

Antisittlichkeit

Organised crime and the antinomies of civil society

part |96 pages

Criminalisation and decriminalisation: modernising criminal law and regulatory strategies

chapter |13 pages

Building justice through criminal law

Issues of criminalisation and trust

chapter |22 pages

Exodus from Lithuania

State, social disenfranchisement and resistance in an era of austerity

chapter |17 pages

The reform story of the Finnish penal code

Ideological turns and waves of modernisation

chapter |20 pages

Criminalisation, decriminalisation and post-communist transition

The case of the Russian Federation *

chapter |22 pages

Decriminalising sex between men in the former Soviet Union, 1991-2003

Conditionality and the Council of Europe 1

part |39 pages

Policing, justice and transformation

chapter |19 pages

Reforming the Ukrainian police

The challenges of understanding and addressing violence

chapter |19 pages

Police reform and building justice in Russia

Problems and prospects

part |10 pages

Some concluding thoughts

chapter |9 pages

Beyond domestic law

Themes and prospects